The Mental Side of Sports Performance in Young Athletes

The importance of a positive mentality in sports is not new, but sadly enough it is often ignored, especially in young athletes.  The perfect time to begin instilling positive thinking is when an athlete is young.  In general a child is more positive, naturally, than an adult is, so fostering this and teaching them to harness it is an invaluable gift you can give to them that will affect not only their sports performance as they get older, but throughout their whole lives. 

The following mental skills will improve your physical performance as well, so make sure to give them equal importance when it comes to being game ready.

Visualisation

Visualization is the process of picturing yourself already having achieved the results you want BEFORE you do it.  For example: a match is coming up this weekend that you really want to win. You spend time each day, in a quiet place or before bed, picturing yourself doing things that help your team win.  The plays you make, the team celebrating the win…all of those things are parts of the visualization process. 

There is a direct correlation between the way you think and the way you perform. By teaching a young athlete to spend time visualizing themselves making goals, intercepting passes and other moves involved in the game, their performance and focus will improve dramatically.  It doesn’t replace good old fashioned practice, but it DOES enhance it and increase the results exponentially.

Focus

What an athlete focuses on is what they will do.  If they focus on missing goals, making mistakes or losing the match, chances are much greater that their focus will become a self fulfilling prophesy.  The more their focus is on the positive aspects of their playing, the better they will play and the more they will have the outcomes they desire.

Focus on the future, not the past. What’s done is done, and while learning from past mistakes is crucial, dwelling on the mistake itself will do nothing but increase more mistakes in the future.  It can become a vicious cycle quickly.   You can’t control the thoughts that enter your mind, but what you CAN do is decide and control how you will respond to those thoughts. 

Taking a negative thought or destructive focus and turning it around immediately to something positive will stop the negative momentum in an instant.  The less time you spend focusing on negative aspects, the less time you will have negative things to focus on.

Self Talk

What a player says to themselves can determine how they play and even the outcome of the match.  If you think something is going to be tough or impossible, it will be.  There is a very famous saying by Henry Ford that says “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”   These are words that every young athlete should be taught because it rings so true. 

If an athlete spends any time with negative self talk, it will only have negative results.   Many coaches and even parents will think that if they are critical and ruthless, they will create better athletes, but when it comes to a young athlete, focusing on the things they do right and training them to do better on the things they are weak in will go a lot farther than making them feel worthless or inadequate about their struggles.  There will be plenty of time in their lives for “tough love”.  This isn’t to say that you should be soft on them; pushing them to do their best is crucial for building strong athletes, but teach them to do it in a strong way that includes physical practice, self talk, focus and visualization and the results will show.